


A Matter of Chance

by traitorhero



Series: Mizumono [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, Bittersweet Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Other, Post Episode: s03e14 Juno Steel and the Mega-Ultrabots of Cyberjustice (Part 2), Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24742732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorhero/pseuds/traitorhero
Summary: There was the briefest moment where Juno believed that it was all some sort of misunderstanding.Then, reality hit. Or stabbed, to be more precise.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Mizumono [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789192
Comments: 20
Kudos: 80





	A Matter of Chance

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time in years that I have felt the need to get a fic out of my brain right after an episode of a show. And I love it. And I swear that I didn't mean to make it as heartbreaking as it may seem to be (but I'm not going to lie and say that I don't enjoy it anyway).
> 
> If you want to know the background music for this fic, I'd recommend you listen to _Bloodfest (From Mizumono)_ by Brian Reitzell.

He was barely able to catch up with him at the docking ramp. The men he had gone with were already walking up into the loading bay, carrying the items that they had stolen. That he had helped them steal. 

“Ransom!”

Nureyev turned around, stopping just before his foot hit the silvered metal. His face was blank, and he crossed his arms to stare at Juno and the blaster pointed at him. There was no hint of the fight he had just perpetrated against them in his posture, aside from a few wrinkles in the silken fabric of his shirt. There was also a rip across the thigh of his pants, though whether or not Vespa had gotten him to bleed was hard to tell against the dark trousers. 

“Juno,” he said coldly. 

“You don’t have to do this, Ransom,” Juno said as he came to stop a few yards from Nureyev. He lowered his blaster, trying to de-escalate what Nureyev had started. “Whatever’s going on-”

“And what, precisely, do you think is going on? Do enlighten me, detective.”

“You’re paying off your debts, I’d guess. You said that they were extensive; I’d bet creds to carts that what we stole would get that off your back for good.”

“Very good, Detective Steel,” Nureyev told him, clapping his hands softly in mocking praise. 

“The only thing I don’t understand is why you had to betray us. Buddy would have helped you. Hell, I would have helped you-”

“You, Juno? And what could you have done to help me?”

Juno took a step closer to him, stamping down the flinch when Nureyev lowered his hands to his sides at the movement. “I don’t know what I could do. But I would have tried to help you. I still want to help you.”

“That’s sweet,” Nureyev replied, his tone almost mocking. Juno narrowed his eye at the hint of pain that he heard lacing through the words. “But I don’t believe you, Juno. I haven’t for a long time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Juno asked. 

He took a step closer despite his own nerves protesting the action. He had seen the way that Nureyev had laid out Jet, a knife stuck in his neck and left there as he collapsed to the floor. The way he had ducked, as if it was a coordinated dance, under the stun blast that had dropped Rita. Vespa he had grabbed as she lunged at him with a scalpel, turning with her movements and using her momentum to toss her back at Buddy. It had been enough to send Buddy toppling over the railing and Vespa scrambling for a handhold to avoid the same fate. 

Juno hadn’t done anything to stop him. Instead, his face was sure to sport some bruises from the goons that had shown up to rob the robbers, and he was pretty sure that at least one of his ribs was cracked from a kick that had been delivered when they had knocked him to the floor. Unlike Nureyev, they hadn’t seemed interested in killing, merely stepping over him to grab what they had come for. Juno had watched as Nureyev looked over the scene, playing at unconsciousness, before he followed them out. 

It had been hard to get to his feet, but he managed. His feet slipped through the growing puddle of Jet’s blood as he hurried over to Vespa, grabbing her arm and hauling her back over the railing. As he did he had seen Buddy’s crumpled form lying at least a story below them, her cybernetic eye rhythmically blinking even as the rest of her was still. He had pushed Vespa towards Jet’s choking and gasping form, rather than let her see what had happened to her fiancée. He had only checked to see that Rita was still breathing before drawing his blaster and charging out after Nureyev. 

“I’m surprised that you believed me,” Nureyev said. “But I suppose you would rather have believed in the fairytale.”

Juno shook his head, “Don’t-”

“Did you really think that I would forgive you?” Nureyev asked. He took a step towards him, his expression still calm as if they were discussing the weather.

“Stop,” Juno whispered.

“In your defense, you very much wanted me to forgive you. It blinded you to all those little inconsistencies in my behavior. All those things, the times I sent you away, that I knew you would have questioned if not for our... _relationship_. And I worked very hard to keep you blind, Juno.”

Juno shut his eye, not bothering to hide the flinch this time. It was all he could do to grit his jaw to stop himself from crying. As he opened it again he saw Nureyev stepping away from him. But he was still close. Close enough that Juno was sure that if he fired he would hit him. 

“Don’t walk away from me,” Juno told him. Nureyev took another step back. Juno swallowed as his finger tensed on the trigger, pulling back on all four pounds that it held.

The gun clicked. 

Empty.

He pulled it again. And again. Juno looked Nureyev in the eyes as he stopped less than a foot away from him. There was nothing of the man that he knew, that he loved, in those eyes. Instead they reminded him of glass in the way that all emotion had been wiped from them, like water. 

“I took the liberty of exchanging your cartridges for empty ones,” Nureyev said. 

Juno let him press the blaster down, only his training stopping him from letting it fall to the latticed floor of the space dock. He knew that Nureyev could feel the trembles that passed from his arm and through the metal of the blaster. Even if he wanted to, Juno couldn’t stop the fear and betrayal that coursed through his body. Nureyev’s actions and words were so different from the man whom he loved; Juno couldn’t reconcile them.

“It was a rare gift I gave you. My name. My past. But you made it clear that you didn’t want it.”

He took another step towards him, until he was close enough to reach up and cup the side of Juno’s face. He could feel Nureyev’s thumb trace the edge of his cheekbone, barely grazing the scar that tapered off from the bridge of his nose. There was something in that touch, familiar and warm in all the ways that Nureyev wasn’t right now, that had him relax against his hand, even as he still trembled with adrenaline. 

The slide of the knife into his abdomen was a shock. It hurt worse than the time Vespa had stabbed him in a similar spot, although he didn't know if that was because she had been a stranger to him. Juno felt himself collapse forward into Nureyev, his blaster falling to the floor as he grabbed at the other man’s shirt. He let out a choked gasp as Nureyev pulled the blade across the width of his stomach. The hand on the side of his face tightened, pulling him so that his face rested against Nureyev’s shoulder as the blade tugged free. It felt like some mockery of an embrace, and one that wasn’t over quickly enough as Juno pulled himself away from his former partner. 

His legs buckled beneath him as he stumbled back, his hands pressing against the weeping wound in his gut. There wasn’t any pain, which he was pretty sure was a bad thing. The amount of blood that was spattered on the silver floor and Nureyev’s clothes made that a pretty safe guess, he was pretty sure. The thief crouched down in front of him, his hand still holding the bloody knife. Juno closed his eye, letting his body collapse onto its side. Just before his head could connect with the metal ground, a hand caught it, lowering it to the floor. Juno opened his eye again, meeting Nureyev’s gaze with as much strength as he could muster. 

“Didn’t I?” he choked out. “Haven’t I?”

“Oh, Juno,” Nureyev said softly. “Let it all be a lie.”

“How am I supposed to believe that, Nureyev?” he asked, his voice breaking on the words. “If you’ll lie, if you’ll say anything to get your job done, how do I know that this isn’t a lie too?”

“I suppose you never will,” Nureyev replied, a hint of real sadness in his eyes. “Goodbye, Juno.”

“For now,” Juno croaked at his retreating back.

There was a slight stumble in Nureyev’s steps, as if the words had surprised him. It wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else, Juno was sure. Not that it mattered as he vanished into the dark of the cargo bay, the gangway rising up behind him and sealing as the starship began its preparations for take-off. Juno kept his eye focused on the silver-black of the ship’s cargo bay doors as it began to rise, though he was finding it harder and harder to keep it open. 

Between one blink and the next the ship was gone. After another there was a shock of green hair in his face, along with a stinging slap to his cheek. He could hear garbled words in a language he was sure that he should have recognized but couldn’t bring himself to comprehend. He blinked again and heard the soft beeping of some sort of medical equipment, their lights sending small halos of red and green light against the ceiling. 

He let his eye close, surprised despite himself that he was glad to be alive. That this new betrayal hadn’t completely unmoored him and sent him paddling against the currents that threatened to overwhelm him time and time again. It hurt in a completely different way than the injury that had gotten him into this bed, but similar enough to one that he had locked away as tightly as his old wedding dress. 

For one second he let himself wonder if how he was feeling was the same as Nureyev had felt when he had woken up alone on Mars. He felt his lips curl up in a grim grin, wondering at the satisfaction that Nureyev might have gotten from replicating that feeling for him. It almost felt too cruel to be something for him to do. But apparently he hadn’t known Peter Nureyev as well as he thought he had - or at all.

A hand tightening around his own drew him away from that line of thinking, and he cracked open his eye.There was actual light in the room this time, though it was dim in a way that suggested early morning shipboard. Rita gave him a small smile as her hands tightened around his one. She looked tired in a way he hadn’t seen since she decided a seven day stream binge with minimal sleep was a good idea. Still, how she looked wouldn’t give him an idea of how long he had been out of it, though he could gather it was longer than anyone would have liked. 

“Rita?” he asked, coughing weakly when he realized how dry his throat was. That in and of itself felt worse, whatever they had done to his stomach to seal the wound Nureyev had given him pinching and pulling at the movement. 

“Heya Mister Steel,” she said, her voice subdued. “Do you need some water?”

He nodded instead of answering. She let her hands fall from around his, and he had to stop himself from reaching out to her as she walked out of his line of sight. Within seconds she was back, though with a tray of ice chips rather than the water she had gone to fetch. She placed them on his chest so that he could reach them, retaking her seat at his bedside. Juno grabbed at her hand, feeling a sense of relief when she didn’t hesitate to hold his again. 

“It’s been a week since we got jumped at the Laverna space docks,” she told him as he picked up a piece of ice and sucked on it. “Miss Vespa wasn’t sure if you were gonna wake up, even though Captain Buddy did two days ago. She said that you bled a whole lot, even more than Mister Jet, which is surprising since he did get stabbed in the neck-”

“Everyone’s alive?” 

“Yeah,” Rita said, her eyes skittering away from his for a moment. “Miss Vespa and I are the only ones that weren’t hurt too bad, just bruises and stuff. Mister Jet’s been up and about, but he’s on light duty. Miss Buddy’s stuck in a bed like you. Her back’s broken, along with about a hundred other bones. And it took so long to get them back to the Carte Blanche that when we finally noticed that you hadn’t come back Miss Vespa said that you must have betrayed us with Mister Ransom, but I told her that was impossible. So I tracked your comms and then we went to find you, only you were barely breathing and I thought you were gonna die and-”

Juno pulled at her hands, and was thankful that she knew what he was asking without words. She shimmied her way over the railing, and he scooted over so there was just enough room on the bed that she could lay down on her side next to him. He ignored the pain the movement caused, but some indication of it must have shown on his face for how carefully Rita arranged herself next to him. He let his arm come to rest alongside her, pulling her in as close as he could as he lay on his back. He could feel the slight tremors in her frame and feel the dampness that spread from where she had laid her head on his shoulder. Rather than say anything, he let her cry it out.

“I couldn’t stop him,” he confessed to her as her tears slowed. 

“You shouldn’t have to,” she whispered back. “You love him, and he loves you.”

He couldn’t stop the flinch that traveled through his body. “He doesn’t, though. It was all a lie. Just like Peter Ransom was a lie, or Monsieur Dauphin, or any of the other aliases he’s had over the years.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It is. He told me that right before he stabbed me.”

“That just doesn’t sound like him, is all,” Rita said. 

“Yeah, well how are we supposed to know who the hell he is anyway? _‘Let it all be a lie’_ , like that makes it any better.” Juno said, affecting Nureyev’s voice as much as he could. 

Rita made a curious noise, but didn't say anything else. They stayed like that for what felt like minutes but was probably hours, judging by how the ice chips had melted into water in the tray. She had dropped off into sleep after a few minutes of him not elaborating any further, whatever power she had used to get through seven days of waiting for him to wake up finally failing her. A part of him wanted to join her in that pursuit, but either having slept for just as long or his own thoughts that kept spiraling back in on themselves kept him from it. 

The door sliding open drew his gaze away from the ceiling. Vespa came in, her eyes meeting his for a moment before she went to poke and prod at the machines he was hooked up to. He kept quiet, even as she drew down the sheet he was covered with and pulled up the bandage stuck to his stomach, the inside of which was stained yellow with only a faint line of red at the center. Apparently happy with this, she turned to prod at his stomach. This, he had to force himself to look at. The black stitches looked exactly like what he had received before, if not even better than what the doctors in Hyperion had done. Vespa nodded to herself and pulled out a new sterile bandage from the side cart, along with something that smelled like antiseptic.

He expected some sort of pain as she cleaned the edges of the wound, but she was careful as she swabbed at it. The few times he flinched she stopped, waiting for him to relax before continuing to clean it. As she was reapplying the bandages, Rita shifted on his other side, and she raised an eyebrow at him. Juno shrugged, tucking his arm more securely around his former secretary, asking her in a silent way if she wanted to argue about it. 

“Just make sure she doesn’t hit any of the stitches,” Vespa whispered. “I’d rather not have to redo them.”

“I’m pretty sure you’d hear me if she did,” Juno replied in a similar tone. “How’re Buddy and Jet? Rita told me they were alive, but...”

“Siquliak’s fine. The blade came close to nicking his carotid but missed by about half an inch. He’s the one that helped me get you and Buddy back on the ship.”

“And Buddy?”

“She’s...”

Juno watched Vespa struggle for a moment. Her eyes darted off to the side, her lips curling back in a sneer before she caught herself, closed her eyes, and shook her head once, twice, thrice. She let out a deep breath and opened them again to look at him. 

“She probably won’t ever walk again,” Vespa said, turning away to look at the machines again. “She’s pretending to be okay with it, but I know she doesn’t want to talk about it. And all I want to do is go out there and find _him_ and-”

She stopped herself, looking at him. For the first time he saw something in her eyes besides mistrust. If he had to label it, he might have called it sorrow, or maybe compassion. Either way, it was something that he had never seen from her before. He tried to smile at her, but he could feel the corners of his lips turn down in a grimace instead.

“He knew exactly how to cut you. To make sure that you had the best chance of survival.”

“How nice of him.”

“Or because he told you that he needed someone on the inside still.”

“I didn’t know,” he told her. “Trust me, I wouldn’t have let him go through with it. I would have stopped him.”

“Yeah, the hacker’s and your reaction made that rather obvious,” she said with a snort. She paused for a moment, before asking, “Are you okay, Steel?”

“Can I get back to you on that?” he replied, letting his head fall back against the pillow. “When can I get out of here?”

“Today, if you want.”

“What’s the catch?”

“I’m going to need to see you every day until those stitches are ready to come out. And you’ll be on light duty, same as Siquliak. Don’t want you reopening that because you decided you could lift a motor.”

“Trust me, I don’t think I’m going to even try to do that.”

She gave him a sharp nod, leaning down and unlocking the rails on her side before sliding them down. The shriek of metal against metal woke Rita up, her eyes blinking blearily as she got her bearings. Juno uncurled his arm from around her, placing it between them as he levered himself to a seated position. By the time he reached it he was panting, his stomach muscles clenching and pulling against the stitches. He slung his legs off the side of the bed, pretending not to notice Vespa standing close enough to catch him if he fell. For the first time since he had met her, he found he wasn’t afraid of her stabbing him; or, maybe, that fear had been taken over by someone else. 

It took far longer than he would have liked to fully stand. Even then, Vespa pushed against his spine so that he was standing up straight like he almost never did, and kept pace with him as he slowly made his way to the door of what he could now see was the med bay. Rita mimicked Vespa on his other side, neither of them saying anything when he needed to lean against the door and catch his breath, or the two other times they stopped on the way to his room. 

But when they got to his room, Juno couldn’t bring himself to open the door. He just stared at it, his mind flashing back to that morning, or rather, the morning seven days ago. Nureyev had been with him then, lounging on the bed as they talked and made jokes about what they were going to do after this was done. Though, knowing what he did now, Juno realized that he was the only one making future plans. Nureyev had simply smiled and nodded, his eyes shining as he had watched Juno get ready, his own clothes already on and picture perfect. Had he already known what he was going to do to them? 

“Can I... can we go see Buddy instead?” he asked, hating how small his voice came out. 

“Of course, Mister Steel!” Rita said after a quick eyebrow conversation with Vespa. 

Whatever had passed between the two of them in that conversation, Juno didn't really care to find out. Thankfully Buddy and Vespa’s room was only a few hallways down, nowhere near as far as the med bay to his room. By the time they reached it his legs felt like limp cricket pad thai noodles, and Vespa all but pushed him into a chair by Buddy’s bedside. Really, it was more like she helped lower him in carefully, but he wasn’t sure if their relationship had progressed to such friendly terms. Even if it had, he doubted they would use them.

Buddy turned her head to look at him with her non-cybernetic eye. Someone, he assumed Vespa, had put a lot of work into making sure that her hair didn’t droop and let the radiation scarred side of her face be visible even as she did that. Her smile was warm, despite how much pain he knew she must have been in. The pins and rods that anchored her body and different points were probably only added to the pain, but her demeanor was still as warm as ever. 

“Vespa, dear, would you and Rita mind going and checking on Jet?”

“Buddy, I don’t-”

“Captain Buddy are you sure-”

“Juno and I need to have a little talk, that’s all. And I think he’d prefer if you two weren’t in the room when we have it. Right, Juno?”

Juno nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Vespa grumbled, but followed Rita out of the room. Not without giving him a death glare before doing it, but still, it was something.

“Buddy, I don’t know what to say. I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t, and now...” 

“I expect you want me to say that some of this is your fault?” Buddy asked as he trailed off. “That we should blame you for something that you had no idea was happening, from a man who asked you to trust him and you did? Really?”

“I don’t feel responsible,” Juno replied, feeling a bit of his old anger and waspishness creeping into his tone. He took a breath, and continued, “But I don’t know why he did this, and I feel like everyone feels like I should. Hell, I feel like I should. And instead I was as blind as anyone.”

“Not blind, I think. More like willfully ignorant. And if you were, then so was I. I knew Peter was in debt to someone, and quite heavy ones at that. But I thought I could trust him enough to see this job through.”

“Blind, willfully ignorant... Does it really matter what word we put on it?”

“In your case, I think it rather does,” she said. “Being blind means that he deceived you utterly, and I rather think that there is some part of him that truly cares for you as much as you do for him-”

“I don’t,” Juno bit out, cutting her off. 

“You do,” Buddy told him, continuing as if he hadn’t cut her off. “I doubt you would be as angry at him if you weren’t. But as I was saying, being willfully ignorant means that you wanted to ignore the things that seemed wrong in order to continue enjoying what you had.”

“We were working on our relationship. Talking things out, figuring out how to make it work. At least, I was.”

“I won’t pretend to know Pete as well as you. In fact, out of the entire crew here, I would say that you probably did know him the best. But I can tell you that he did care for you. Probably still does, despite everything.”

“He said it was all a lie,” Juno said. “After he stabbed me. Didn't even try and correct me when I called him on it. He just...left.”

“I can’t pretend to know what that feels like, Juno. But if you think that he could just leave you without having cared for you a little, then he’s not the man I thought he was.”

“He wasn’t the first one to leave.”

Buddy paused, her eyebrow lifting at his statement. Juno hunched inwards, only to hiss and sit up straighter when it made his stitches shift strangely. She considered him for a moment, before her smile softened.

“The Juno Steel I met almost a year ago does seem like the type to leave them before they have a chance to leave you. But just because you did something terrible in your past relationship with him, one that you believed that the two of you had worked out, does not give him the right to hurt you in a similar way. This wasn’t your fault, Juno.”

“I know it isn’t,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t wish it was. It just feels all unfinished.”

“Life is like that. Sometimes we don’t get the endings we thought we were going to. It’s not pretty and it’s not fun, but it is life. And we pick ourselves up when things like this knock us down.”

“I don’t think that’s an option in this case. Ransom has everything he needs to get the Curemother Prime.”

“He does, doesn’t he,” Buddy agreed, though the smile didn’t drop from her face. 

“But... you seem to be okay with that?”

“I can tell you that I’m not happy about it, but it’s not like he has the only copies of them.”

Juno frowned as he tried to work through what she had just said. “I don’t-”

“Really, Juno, you, Pete, and Rita made a copy of the Book. After that little escapade I realized that wasn’t such a terrible idea, and made copies of the originals as well. So, despite Pete making off with the originals, we aren’t in as bad of straits as he thinks he’s left us. Not terribly great ones, I’ll grant you, but nothing as terrible as he may think.”

“Yeah, but he’s probably halfway to the place or he’s already helped steal it all for his new boss. And we’re all too injured to stop him.”

“I doubt they’ve gotten to it already. Even with the Map, they’d have to figure out where exactly it is.”

“It’s a map,” Juno said. “It will lead them right to it.”

“It’s a map of the way to get into the facility,” she replied, “with a smattering of stars around it, not one of where the Curemother is. That is something that they’ll have to figure out.”

“So we don’t know where it is either?”

“Not precisely, no. But we had the Map for quite a bit longer than they have. They’ll be starting from scratch, whereas we are at least on the right track to find it.”

“So, how long do you think we have until they figure it out?” Juno asked. 

“A few months, I’d imagine,” Buddy said. “Long enough for us to heal and figure out our next steps.”

Juno nodded, and then tried to stifle a yawn. Buddy chuckled, turning her head to face the ceiling once more. 

“Get some rest, Juno. We have time to continue this conversation tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” he agreed.

It took him a minute to get out of the chair, and almost an embarrassing amount of time longer to get to the door. Once he was out of the room, he let himself lean against the wall as he walked back towards his own. As he took a short break to regain his bearings, he realized that he had stopped outside of Nureyev’s room. Without even thinking about it, he knocked on the door as if he expected him to answer. After a moment he opened it, but stopped himself from actually stepping inside. 

It looked as if it were simply waiting for Nureyev to return. His beauty items were placed on a small bedside table, most of them half-full with creams and agents that Juno had never been able to make heads or tails of. His bed was made, though not with any sort of real precision. Just enough that it would be acceptable to be seen if anyone came by, in direct opposition to how Juno tended to leave his own. A few pieces of different outfits were tossed over a chair, even as the shoes were stacked nicely in the corner. Juno wasn’t sure how long he looked at the small things that had made up the man that he knew, but all too soon and not long enough he turned away, the door closing behind him as he continued back to his room.

He was too tired to think of how much it hurt to lay in the same bed that they had shared only a few days ago. He hurt too much, Juno mused, to care enough about how much it hurt. As he sat down on the edge of his bed, Juno carefully maneuvered himself to lay down on his back rather than his side as he preferred. It was only with how slowly he let his head sink down to rest on the pillow that he heard the crinkle of paper. 

Frowning, he reached under it, finding nothing. As he laid his head down he heard it again. This time he picked up the entire pillow, and as he turned it on it’s side he saw the paper slide out from underneath the pillow cover and onto the bed. Juno picked it up, turning the folded paper over and over in his hands as he let his head hit the pillow again. Even though part of him whispered that opening it was a bad idea, the part of him that had been a detective, had been a private eye, urged him to do it anyway. 

The first thing he saw was his name. He would have recognized the penmanship anywhere, but he could almost hear Nureyev saying his name through the paper. Juno shut his eye, feeling a tear snake its way down his face and almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it. He didn't want the man to have such power over him, over his emotions, but it seemed like that wasn’t something he got to decide. Wiping his face with his free hand, Juno read.

_Juno,_

_By the time you are reading this, I will already be gone. I know reading this won’t make what has happened any easier, and I am sorry for that. But this is what I_ **_had_ ** _to do._

_I have a feeling that this heist I have planned, the one that I am currently planning to do, will not go as I expect. Nothing ever seems to, these days. And if it does not go as I want it to, I will have to face you. I will have to say things that will hurt you... I will have to hurt you. I know you Juno, better than I even know myself most days, and I know that you will not let me go without some kind of blood, real or metaphorical, being spilt._

_I wish I could tell you why... Better yet, I wish I could tell you who. But even though it has been years and much has changed, I find it hard to even write down that name. But I think you might know what I am referring to. I hope you do._

_It doesn’t change anything, what I plan to do. I know that I could stop this, could tell you as soon as you come back from your shower. I won’t, though. Because the most important thing that you need to know about me is that I am a coward, Juno. I cannot face my past and change it, no matter how much I wish to. And that is why I must follow through, no matter how much it will hurt you. How much it will hurt the family that Buddy has made for us onboard the Carte Blanche._

_You may show them this letter, if you choose. Let them see the truth behind all the masks that I have worn. I know it won’t change anything for them, but hopefully it will lend them some form of closure. I cannot apologize enough to them for what I have put them through by doing this. I cannot apologize to you. And I know that I will never see any forgiveness for my actions._

_If Juno has decided to show you this note, I am sorry. I do not believe I will get the chance to say so in person._

_And to you, Juno..._

_No matter what, know that I will always care for you, Juno Steel. More the fool am I._

_Love,_

_Peter Nureyev_

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, not sorry! But don't worry, there's more to come.
> 
> Also, if you caught a reference, it was probably intentional. 
> 
> And, as a fun little side note, Laverna is a Roman goddess of thieves, cheats, and the underworld. Since most of the planets in the Junoverse have some sort of god-name, I figured she'd be a perfect fit.


End file.
